Against them make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into (the hearts of) the enemies, of Allah and your enemies, and others besides, whom ye may not know, but whom Allah doth know. Whatever ye shall spend in the cause of Allah, shall be repaid unto you, and ye shall not be treated unjustly" 8:60

I wonder who falls into the category of "enemies". I dont see that as saying terrorize Christians, Jews or non believers.

From what I know the Quran shouldn't be translated to other languages because the TRUE meaning of the text can be altered or wrongly translated.

Enemies being unbelievers and pagans, and often any non-muslim, was already established.

Quote:

Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the Religion of truth, from among the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizyah with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued" 9:29

Although translations are always an invitation to interpertation, and expressing words that have no equivelent in other languages, that "must read in Arabic" thing is a cop-out used to end discussions. If an Arabic speaker here thinks otherwise, please put it in context. Here ya go...

You'd think the creator of the universe would know the majority of the worlds population wouldn't speak Arabic. You'd also think he'd reveal himself to someone who was literate- preferably in many languages. Who knows how much editorializing the original scribes did.

as with the dutch cartoon flap, the correct response should be economic. it didnt rcv as much coverage as riots in muslim countries, etc, but dutch companies lost significant market share and revenue in gcc countries.

i say let the guy go ahead and do is thing. it'll then be even more ironic when the saudis demand euro or sterling for their oil, instead of dollars. that, combined with some muslim countries starting to dump their treasury holdings would make a much stronger point than numbnuts running around burning us flags.

Why cant people understand that Islam is a religion founded 1400 years ago? Just because a certain population of "so called muslims" cant follow it properly why do people doubt the message of peace in Islam? I actually cannot explain or emphasize enough the message of peace in Islam. Islam teaches about respecting your parents, children, teachers, neighbours, etc. and etiquette in regards to so many things like eating, sleeping, hygiene etc.

Yet people hear about threats from some terrorist group and start doubting how peaceful the religion really is. Without exaggeration I think it would take a couple of years to fully study Islam and its many texts to understand just how deep a religion it is and how peaceful it is.

I'm not questioning whether it's a peaceful religion or not. My point is that in reality; nations, religious leaders, militaries, and many an individual are scared right now because they fear muslim (extremist or otherwise) retaliation.

The US embassy in Indonesia has been threatened with violence should this one guy thousands of miles away burn a few Qurans. Peaceful or otherwise, it's followers demonstrate less than peaceful behavior. Perception is reality and we're not talking about just a few select people who fear muslim reaction to a Quran burning. It's like racial profiling.... if it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, quacks like a duck.... Well, it could be a duck. While their intentions are well placed with trying to get this guy to not burn Qurans, these leaders have shown muslims all over the world that the west pisses themselves when Islam threatens.

Say this guy backs down and calmer heads prevail as the good General wishes. What stops Al Jezera from staging a video of someone burning some books that look like Qurans only to get a reaction.

We all seem to agree that any violent "retaliation" from any Muslim on westerners or christians in general is ridiculous. Yet i haven't read of any muslim groups saying or doing anything but threaten with violence.

__________________

-Joe

"Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else." — Frédéric Bastiat

Yes, Virginia, there indeed are acts that are universally considered wrong, bad, unproductive, whatever by any civilized society. And Islam and the Q'uran support and reinforce many of them. Islam is a dangerous, backward looking, violence obsessed and primitive method of societal control and expansion (not a religion). Any moslem that believes in and observes that book's dictums and the words of the prophet is an enemy to reason and civilization. Other groups have largely grown out of their early excesses--Islam revels in them and seeks a sixth century existence for all. Until moslems stand up and take on their outliers they will continue to be thought of as potentially dangerous.

As to the OP--the reverend is a fool and a dangerous one. And I don't care where the mosque gets built. Minor points that divert from what is important.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hks786

At the end of the day there is noone who can tell us what is right/wrong because everyone has a different interpretation of these things.

I have lost interest in this thread because all that's going to happen is people who dont even understand the arabic language will quote things in english translations AND without giving any proper context, therefore making any argument pointless.

All I'm going to say is IN MY OPINION Islam is a very deep peaceful religion that does not promote terrorism. However, I do agree that in Islam we have our own justice system that people may not agree with. NOTE: I AM NOT talking about the type of "justice" that happens across the world in "muslim countries". They are bad examples of people wrongly interpreting Islam.

Do I care if people dont agree with it? No. As I said you can hate on Islam all you want but that doesnt make you right especially if you have done nothing to study the religion and you just paste shit off the internet. You are entitled to your opinion and to me mines.

Also, you take the piss out of Islam but look at western ideas. In the west we have problems with banking, drugs, alcohol, debt, gun and knife crime, rape, etc... So think about that next time if you think you have the solution to all the world's problems. Muslims do not interfere with your laws and yet your systems are clearly failing you.

weird. all the "moslems" i know tend to be fairly observant, and graduated from ivy league or equivalent schools, and work as doctors, engineers, lawyers or execs. maybe its a locaton thing: cali or ny versus trashy flyover states?

Quote:

Originally Posted by OldArmy

Relativist B.S.

Yes, Virginia, there indeed are acts that are universally considered wrong, bad, unproductive, whatever by any civilized society. And Islam and the Q'uran support and reinforce many of them. Islam is a dangerous, backward looking, violence obsessed and primitive method of societal control and expansion (not a religion). Any moslem that believes in and observes that book's dictums and the words of the prophet is an enemy to reason and civilization. Other groups have largely grown out of their early excesses--Islam revels in them and seeks a sixth century existence for all. Until moslems stand up and take on their outliers they will continue to be thought of as potentially dangerous.

As to the OP--the reverend is a fool and a dangerous one. And I don't care where the mosque gets built. Minor points that divert from what is important.

Let me paste that into google translate. I bet the people that are talking bad about Islam have NEVER been to a Masjid/Mosque, Never had a muslim friend, never been to a Muslim country and probably doesnt live in a big city.

You can find some pretty awful stuff in the bible, too, but people don't take it as seriously as the Muslims. If you think you do, when was the last time you stoned someone?

Look- these are just the claims of some guy who said he heard voices in a cave. Why would you believe that?

Hey look, I can pick and choose, and quote out of context, too. And yes, there are people who do believe this kind of crap to heart.

Quote:

“When you approach a city to fight against it, you shall offer it terms of peace. If it agrees to make peace with you and opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall become your forced labor and shall serve you. However, if it does not make peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it. When the LORD your God gives it into your hand, you shall strike all the men in it with the edge of the sword. Only the women and the children and the animals and all that is in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as booty for yourself; and you shall use the spoil of your enemies which the LORD your God has given you…Only in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, you shall not leave alive anything that breathes (Deuteronomy 20:10-17)

So the people of nations considered enemies of the Lord should be either:

a. Turned into slaves

b. Killed

Quote:

"Do not think that I have come to send peace on earth. I did not come to send peace, but a sword. I am sent to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law" (Matthew 10:34-35)

Look at all that promotion of love.

And when was the last time I've heard of someone killing for Christ? Actually, quite recently.

You guys are really funny. So eager to bitch at each other and say that each one doesn't understand the other or their religion. Yet all seem to miss the big picture. Get outside yourselves and your own little opinion and take a look at what the world thinks.

It seems the facts of this situation are lost on most of you. The majority in here seem only interested in convincing others of their own opinion. Good luck with that.

__________________

-Joe

"Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else." — Frédéric Bastiat

weird. all the "moslems" i know tend to be fairly observant, and graduated from ivy league or equivalent schools, and work as doctors, engineers, lawyers or execs. maybe its a locaton thing: cali or ny versus trashy flyover states?

"Trashy flyover states?". How very left coast of you. Kalifornia would be a great place if it wasn't for all the Kalifornians.

And all those highly educated professionals just look away and stay silent when the radicals talk. They are complicit in the hardened opinion on islam.

Just playing devil's advocate, but the bible (new testament part) is based off the teachings of a guy who supposedly rose from the dead. Why would you believe that?

I give up. Why?

In all fairness, that is more impressive than sitting in a cave listening to voices in your head.

However, I find that story far-fetched as well. I think the creator of the universe, in the unlikely event such an entity exists, would find better methods of communication than revealing himself to illiterate bronze-age desert nomads.

All I'm going to say is IN MY OPINION Islam is a very deep peaceful religion that does not promote terrorism. However, I do agree that in Islam we have our own justice system that people may not agree with.

It sure doesn't look that way from the outside. Off the top of my head, we see Islamic-inspired beheadings (on a regular basis for a while), shia and sunni slaughtering each other, sudanese genocide of Christians, the vast majority of hijackings, flying planes full of civilians into buildings, blowing up trains, sendinging kids and teens on suicide missions to kill civilians in palestine and then bragging about it, extreme lack of freedom under sharia, treatment of women as property with even more extreme limitations on their rights, barbaric punishment methods even for trivial crimes, constant threats of genocide of the jews from Islamic states (often accompanied with great respect for Hitler's attempt), retentention of Muslims through extreme threats should they become apostate, violent protests against ridiculously minor things, like a cartoon, and killing of people critical to Islam (Theo Van Gogh), Ayan Hirsi Ali having to live with the protection of bodyguards due to her criticism, we see terrorists brutally slaughtering hundreds of innocent, defenseless children in a Russian school etc.

Despite all this, most Muslims are peaceful. But a disproportionately huge number aren't, and it causes a lot of problems. What has Islam done to promote peace? What has Islam done to contribute to the modern world? What has Islam even done to earn respect, rather than contempt? If you want Islam to be respected as a religion of peace, and as compatible with the modern world, police your own and clean up your own house. DEMONSTRATE it is a religion of peace- don't just keep saying it. The proof is in the pudding.

Quote:

NOTE: I AM NOT talking about the type of "justice" that happens across the world in "muslim countries". They are bad examples of people wrongly interpreting Islam.

Are you kidding me? The Koran clearly says to cut the hand off of thiefs.

Quote:

"As to the thief, Male or female, cut off his or her hands: a punishment by way of example, from Allah, for their crime: and Allah is Exalted in power." - Quran 5:38

I believe the stoning of adulterers is from the Haddith (edit- just looked it up. Sahih Bukhari, Volume 8, Book 82), and as a continuition of the traditions taken from the bible. They're following it the RIGHT way, which is what makes it so scary. The bible says to stone adulterers, too, but Jews and Christians have outgrown that disgusting practice.

I'd love to see you go to a Muslim theocracy and tell them Sharia is wrong

Let me paste that into google translate. I bet the people that are talking bad about Islam have NEVER been to a Masjid/Mosque, Never had a muslim friend, never been to a Muslim country and probably doesnt live in a big city.

I've visited three Muslim countries on vacation, visited several mosques, including the beautiful "Blue Mosque" in Istanbul on the last day of Ramadan, and have a friend who is a civil engineer who was working on building the world's biggest mosque in Abu Daubi.

I've worked closely with several Muslims on projects in engineering school, but never really hung out socially. Different interests.

Yup- pretty abhorent stuff, huh. I think you used sufficient context, too, since those things are inexcusable under any context. Just because other religions books teach such barbarity doesn't make it OK for yours to do it, too- particularly if you want to claim it is a religion of peace. If you think I was quoting out of context, please feel free to add it.

The big difference however is Christians and Jews no longer practice such things, while many Muslims still do practice the violent parts of the Koran.